please stay tuned!

hello! i'm sending this quick message from Zia airport, on my way home. i am simultaneously listening to my last Call to Prayer and trying not to feel to sad about leaving this place - what a weird place to say goodbye to.

i have 2 more special posts to make after i get home to Cville - i did something neat yesterday that i want to share: i went back to someplaces in town and gave out copies of the pictures i took. it was cool and i took some more pics of that event.

so this message just asks you to stay tuned for a little longer to homeplacedrive -

see you, wonderful family, dear friends, so SOON

ps - Dave and I survived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

meet the kindergarteners!

one month of teaching Kg - we did great!
for example - we eat fewer boogers now than we did 4 weeks ago!
we love to hear stories, and we know our subtraction facts like 8-4=6! no no no! 8-4=4.
we know how to make sand castles and bake bread, and last week we took a field trip to the igloo ice cream factory and no one threw up on our bus. sometimes we call our teacher "Ms. P!" and yesterday we gave her lots of hugs when we said goodbye -

Ammar - Sudan
Chang Hoon - South Korea
Anil - Nepal
Leeyan - Bangladesh
Freya, Aditya, and Ammar

Ms. P didn't think she'd like kindergarten, but she did.

here in dhaka we have spent the week saying goodbyes. the community of AIS/D that has been a family of friends within a strange tough Dhaka prepares to break apart... as all the members go off to their own far corner of the Earth for the summer holiday. many, students and teachers, are leaving for good and starting something new somewhere else - their next step, their next posting. and this week, in every division of the school, there has been an assembly in which students thank their friends who are leaving and also say thank you to their teachers in the form of individualized speeches. how special this gesture was. finally we closed up today with a last faculty meeting in which more stories were told and thank yous made. i don't think i've ever seen a group of adults so choked with emotions. this week we've been tearful again and again with the bittersweet of ending.

but now it's through. school's out for the summer. and it's time to escape before someone realizes that perhaps i or he or she is not all that rosey and significant after, at least not all the time. let's get out of here!

in our own little household we are preparing to say goodbye to someone who has taken good care of us. Anna our housekeeper. i really love Anna. as we go we are trying to take some deliberate steps to make sure that we take care of her too...

tuesday i took some photographs of Anna with her children, 3 year-old Zaxina and 4-month old Tansik.

today became an interesting day on the walk home. i waited til a huge downpour had ended to start the walk... the road in front of school was dry enough. however

you have to cross through 2 other streets to get to our house, and they must be at a slightly lower elevation. there was water everywhere. water above the car wheels. rickshaws stuck and turning over.

i found myself walking through it; i went for it because it wasn't so bad when i first started walking through. the middle of the road is higher and at first there was a sort of path. but it got deeper and deeper. the water was almost at my knee. i was wearing salwar kameez and chacos, floppy pants that i could pull way up and sandals.

there is a big open sewer on our street corner - 1 house away from our apartment. it is nasty and i walk by it every day to get to school. the water more than covered it, and its contents were everywhere in the street soup (i think. it was all brown and nasty.)

a dead frog bumped into my leg. it was all so gross, i had a true urge to vomit everywhere. i got home and took off shoes and pants at the door and ran to the shower.

that was a bangladesh experience. i suppose i needed to have it before i left. the water has receded now. we went to a Korean restaurant for dinner. a land of gross contradictions.

some other Dhaka views

with 7 days to go...

...i feel like there is still so much to try to communicate about Bangladesh...
still turmoil in my head and heart, and definitely in my stomach, when i engage with this place.

Hello my dear family and friends. I can't wait to hug you soon.

People have been sending around pictures this morning, so (while the kindergarteners are out at PE class) I think I'll share some. You guys know that the scenes in these pictures look nothing like real Dhaka... these are pictures from the American School cloud in the sky. Please stay tuned for more real world pictures soon.

Did you know that I played on a softball team all year long?
I've been warming up my skills so I can play with on a team with our friends back in Cville, and maybe just maybe keep up with my future husband :)

We played on Friday mornings from September to May. It was in an expat league - a Korean group, a Japanese group, one group from Chevron, one group from the American embassy, and a few others. We beat the Japanese team in a final the tournament a few weeks ago! We played all of our games on the school soccer turf - it is raised and drained to prevent flooding - not bad at all; I think it actually might be the best field in the whole country.

We also had a year-end faculty party last Friday. This is exciting because I put on my sari totally by myself (triumph! Mrs. Sinha would be proud!) and had a blast looking and feeling sort-of like a Bollywood actress all night long.

Bangladesh - a mysterious place where saris and burkas co-exist...

I guess I'm going to be more like a normal blogger today - no pictures, but instead I'm going to go on and on about my politics for a while...

President Obama's speech in Cairo today. I just think it was important. For me he spoke this complicated truth that we all believe in and that is always with us, but has floated elusively and been hidden by the ignorant rhetoric and fear-mongering of bad leaders.

The value of Mr. Obama's speech is not any particular implication for American foreign policy; the value is its full disclosure, which lets universal truths show through and therefore encourages more fair decision-making. For example, the disturbing situation of Israel and Palestine and the undeniable wrongs that persist on both sides.

While listening to this speech I was emotionally transported back to September 11th and the dialogue over how our country would respond. I worried and hoped a lot, like many of us did, for a response that would give credit to the full global reality -
The memory of those feelings and the disappointment is distressing even now. For me, what Obama gave today was the message that the whole world, the US especially, needed on September 12th. Today I felt finally that the US is representing the high road on Islam and the Middle East, which happens to be the road that actually faces reality and seeks peace.

I feel we've been waiting for a long time for some world-class leader to put this particular set of issues into clear and respectful words - admitting complexities but giving emphasis to universal understandings. Moreover, this is what people worldwide hoped Obama could do for us all; he's fulfilled some expectations today.

After one year in a Muslim country, Obama's words do it for me - they sum up what I see in this society - appreciation, despair, and fear. He did nothing but speak the truth, but my dear God it was beautiful.

I watched this speech live on Aljezeera this afternoon; that is our primary international news source - the whole Arab/Muslim world watch Aljazeera's broadcasting. In the follow-up coverage their reception of the speech was decidedly reverent. Not to mention Obama received interruptions of applause and a standing ovation. The choice to use inclusive rhetoric has very big implications.

May peace be upon us all. Mr. Obama, you are a gift.

some portraits, girls and boys